


If I Told You

by rikubean



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Body Swap, F/F, Hackle Summer Trope Challenge, Mildred does something right but things go wrong anyway, the cats knew everything all along
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 21:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19894705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikubean/pseuds/rikubean
Summary: Hecate rolls to her feet, her whole body prickling with anxiety, and blinks owlishly at what can't possibly be herself on the floor in front of Ada. Instant fury at the imposter takes over and Hecate barely registers the rumbling growl is coming from her until she sneers her lips back in a hiss."Morgana!" Ada admonishes, shock on her face, and it's only then Hecate realizes she's on four legs, not two, and her face is significantly closer to the ground than she's used to."I-I'm Morgana," the other woman says, and Hecate looks to see herself struggling to sit up and staring incredulously at her hands....or, an incident in the potions lab gives Hecate and Morgana both a new perspective on things.





	If I Told You

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks to cassiopeiasara for beta reading and letting me scream about this while I complained heavily about it not wanting to write itself, and to agapi42 for cheerleading to get it done
> 
> this was supposed to be a quick silly prompt and then, well, they were idiots who wouldn't talk about it and here we are.

_If I told you that I sneak sometimes  
__If I told you that I love too much_  
_If I showed you the other side,_  
 _Would you follow me?_  
\- "If I Told You," Idina Menzel

It starts, like many accidents, with Mildred Hubble.

Mildred Hubble and an improperly cleaned cauldron left to simmer the dregs of her surprisingly effective efforts in class. Perhaps it was the lingering relief at the girl's success that made Hecate less inclined to transfer her in to clean. Instead she sighs heavily and turns her back to it, grabbing cleaning supplies to do it herself. It _is_ Friday evening, and disciplining Mildred Hubble now will only delay Hecate's own weekend plans. 

Hecate catches sight of her familiar gracefully jumping to the bench to sniff at the offending potion out of the corner of her eye before there is a flash and a bang and everything goes dark.

* * *

" _Hecate!_ " 

It's Ada's voice, and the anguish in it makes Hecate want to find her and soothe her immediately. _I'm all right. It's okay._ The words rattle in her head but she can't make sense of how to verbalize them. Hecate feels a vibrating in her chest that suggest her body is at least trying to listen to the command. 

There's a rush of air, as if something moved by her quickly, before she can almost sense someone settling down over the ground. _Ada._ With an immense force of will, Hecate makes her eyes open.

She's on the floor of the potions lab, that much she can tell. Everything seems _off_ in a way she can't place, not when her entire being is still aching to relieve the shaking she can see in Ada's shoulders, a sure sign of Ada trying to hold back tears. 

_Ada!_ Hecate finally manages to get her lungs and throat to work, but instead an almost inhuman groaning noise comes out instead. Surprisingly that fails to grab Ada's attention, so Hecate closes her eyes again to try and take stock of how she's feeling. 

"Whassamatter wit Hecate?" she hears, from a voice that sounds familiar but takes too much brain power to place, not when Ada is still audibly upset. The words, slurred and disoriented as they are, only seem to make Ada sob harder, and Hecate instantly wants to _bite_ whoever made her sad. 

She squashes the strange impulse and opens her eyes and tries to move her hands to get Ada's attention. She doesn't understand why Ada has her back to her, still, or who the other woman in the room is. Her memory is foggy; Hecate remembers she was supposed to see Ada in her office after clearing up the potions lab from her classes…. The explosion!

Suddenly Hecate rolls to her feet, her whole body prickling with anxiety, and blinks owlishly at what can't possibly be _herself_ on the floor in front of Ada. Instant fury at the imposter takes over and Hecate barely registers the rumbling growl is coming from her until she sneers her lips back in a hiss.

"Morgana!" Ada admonishes, shock on her face, and it's only then Hecate realizes she's on four legs, not two, and her face is significantly closer to the ground than she's used to.

"I-I'm Morgana," the other woman says, and Hecate looks to see _herself_ struggling to sit up and staring incredulously at her hands.

* * *

The worst part about being a cat, Hecate decides, is she can't _use her words_ and explain the bits and pieces of her memories to help figure out what exactly resulted in her consciousness being swapped with her familiar's.

She paces back and forth as Morgana and Ada talk. Her familiar does her best to put in human terms how the day had gone, but her restlessness only seems to put Ada on edge. Hecate can hear it in her breathing, subtle shifts she would normally need to see her body language to detect. She gives up on prowling back and forth and jumps onto the bench top instead, finding her body knows what to do if she doesn't put too much thought behind the actions.

A rumble erupts from her chest as she butts her head against Ada's hand and Ada immediately starts scratching at her ears. Morgana makes a discontented noise that seems out of place from a human throat, which only makes the noises Hecate is making increase.

"Oh, Hecate," Ada says in that soft tone Hecate adores. It's only then that the noises she's been making are obvious as loud purring. "Do you understand what's going on?"

"Probably!" Morgana chirps. She sounds pleased to be helpful, but all Hecate can hear is the wrong sound of her voice in a tone she would never use. "We - that is, the familiars - can pretty much understand what's going on as long as we're paying attention. Witches use a lot of shiny or dangling things so we get distracted sometimes, but if I know what's going on from this body, she should know what's going on from there." She sticks her tongue out and closes one eye to stare at Hecate, putting her face close.

Hecate sneezes and rubs her face against Ada's hand again.

Morgana scrunches her face and pulls away. "She did that on purpose!" She pouts in a way that looks absurdly out of place on Hecate's face, and Ada finally can do nothing else but burst into hysterical laughter at the entire situation.

Hecate makes a distressed noise at that, not liking the sound at all, and climbs up Ada's arm to rub her face on her cheeks, only barely resisting the urge to lick the tears away. Aside from the gesture being far too intimate, she knows from experience the attempt wouldn't be as soothing as she intended. She figures out how to increase the volume of her purring. _It'll be alright, Ada,_ she desperately wants to say. Hecate doesn't understand yet how this happened, but she'd do anything to make Ada smile again.

Struck with an idea, she leaps suddenly from Ada's shoulder and darts over to the sooty remains of Mildred Hubble's cauldron. Her nose twitches when she gets close, and she opens her mouth to try and get a better grasp on if the girl had actually brewed the potion correctly or if she'd mixed up an ingredient at the end. Frustratingly, the potion had mostly boiled off before it had blown, and Hecate wasn't sure if Mildred had bottled the allocated amount as she was supposed to, considering the girl was _also_ supposed to have wiped her cauldron clean at the same time. Hecate huffed and set her chin on her paws, at a loss for what she could possibly do from this state.

“It’s all right,” her own voice says, and a hand gently strokes down her spine the way she knows Morgana adores. Hecate stretches with the motion and peeks an eye up at the distressing sight of her own face smiling reassuringly at her. “We’ll figure it out without having to shred everything Mildred Hubble owns to do it.” The wry smirk sent her way at least _somewhat_ looked normal, and Hecate felt herself relax incrementally at the reassurance.

The strangest part, she thinks, is feeling her magic radiating off her own body - Ada’s too. She tells herself that’s why she keeps purring while rubbing her face against Ada’s skin; the magic thrumming through her slides pleasantly across her fur.

They don’t immediately figure out what exactly fell into the cauldron - or didn’t - from testing the charred scrapings they find. Ada transfers them to her office (Morgana isn’t certain she trusts wielding the magic that’s in some ways so familiar to her and in others very foreign), where Hecate promptly curls up in Ada’s lap and Morgana looks on without even trying to disguise her jealousy.

“That’s _my_ spot,” she says, crossing her arms and huffing.

Hecate raises her head and pointedly nuzzles further into Ada’s stomach, feeling pleased when Ada laughs in response.

“I think Pendell might disagree,” Ada replies.

“Oh, we’ve got an agreement!” Morgana perks up to explain. “We get to trade humans when one of you is lonely, which happens a lot. We know you two love each other and it’s really frustrating that you keep insisting on being separate.” She shrugs, as if she didn’t just air one of Hecate’s greatest secrets.

Hecate stiffens in Ada’s lap, and Ada’s hands still from where they had been mindlessly stroking her fur. Morgana continues on, “So he doesn’t mind when I want to sit in your lap while you work. Your office is warmer than ours, which I like, and he likes our colder bedroom - “

A hiss cuts her off. Hecate’s ears are flattened back and she’s pulling her lips in a snarl at her own body. _I was supposed to tell her that!_

Morgana’s eyes widen and she literally slaps a hand over her mouth to stop the flow of words. “Human words are _hard_!” 

* * *

It takes time, but eventually Hecate calms down, still tucked solidly into Ada’s stomach. From there she can hear as Ada’s heart rate returns to normal. It’s soothing, in a way, to hear the reassurance that Ada is caught just as caught off guard by this as she is, that as in all things, they’re handling this together. Ada’s magic surrounds her, a comforting hum her body seems already attuned to.

Morgana had run off to try all the human things she could before they switched their consciousnesses back, leaving her words hanging over them in her wake. Hecate worries only slightly at the damage to her reputation her familiar can do by running off in her body; she cares so much more about trying to reconcile what Ada heard. Sweet, darling Ada, who deserved a proper confession, not a hastily blurted out… babbling stream of consciousness from her familiar.

_I’m sorry, Ada,_ she wants to say. She purrs instead, unsure of what else she can do to explain herself. Hecate _hates_ this. Normally she’s trapped by her own social ineptitude to form the words she needs, not the actual inability to speak them.

“It’s all right, Hecate,” Ada says, like she knows what she can’t say. “I know this isn’t what we planned, but I’m glad you’re here.” Hecate _mrrwphs_ plaintively in response. “Yes, dear, I know, you’d rather have said something yourself. I know the feeling. Quite well, if you can believe it.” She chuckles, although there’s no humor to be found in it. “I never thought Pendell of all people would reveal my secrets, you know.” She scratches at Hecate’s ears again and sighs heavily. “She wasn’t wrong. I do love you. This isn’t how I wanted to tell you, naturally, as I’m sure you can imagine, I just…”

Ada sighs again, and Hecate wants more than anything to take that heaviness off her shoulders. All she can do is chirp in response and reach up to put her paws on Ada’s shoulders to nuzzle against her face. _I love you, too_ , she wants to say, more than anything, in that moment. 

* * *

It gets late, with no progress made on getting Hecate and Morgana back into their proper bodies. Hecate paces, unsure if she should press for what she wants, but she feels off and out of place in her own rooms in this shape, no matter how easily Morgana settles into the large bed, spreading out in a way Hecate herself never sleeps.

Since she can’t sleep and she can’t properly do her rounds, Hecate wanders the castle halls. The perspective change throws off her usual ease in navigating, but seeing through a cat’s eyes means the dim lighting isn’t an issue. Without realizing it, she’s outside Ada’s rooms, staring at the closed door. Hecate has always hated doors. This apparently hasn’t improved in the slightest by no longer being tall enough or having the thumbs necessary to open the door.

As she turns to try and find her way back to her own rooms, the door opens and out steps Ada. Hecate meows happily before she can stop the urge and darts into the room, slipping easily between her legs and making a beeline for Ada’s bed, jumping straight up and burrowing her face under the blankets until her nose is full of Ada’s scent and her body is tingling with Ada’s magic. Hecate starts purring again, something she can’t seem to _stop_ doing around Ada, and finally feels like she can sleep.

It doesn’t take long before Ada comes back to her bed, pausing only a moment before curling up next to her. She tries to put distance between them. They really aren’t at the bed sharing stage of the relationship - if what they have can really be called a relationship, what with a one sided confession and Hecate being stuck in her familiar’s body - but the need for closeness overrides everything else.

Hecate falls asleep curled into Ada’s stomach, with Ada’s arms wrapped around her. 

* * *

They spend Saturday in the library, searching through counterspells and any book they can find on potions mishaps that could lead to any sort of clue as to what had caused the mind swap. Hecate tries as hard as she can to be as delicate as possible, but she needs Ada to open the books and she needs to use her claws to turn the pages. She makes a mental note of every tear to go back and repair them once she has her body and her powers back.

Morgana, with Pendell in tow, shows up at intervals to remind them to eat, then cheerfully goes back along her way. Hecate envies her surety that this will all work out. She supposes from the familiar’s perspective, she’s never seen them encounter a problem they couldn’t solve. Hecate also supposes there are worse things Morgana could be up to than running around carrying Pendell at human eye height in some kind of attempt to share her new vantage point.

By dinnertime Hecate’s hopes have dwindled. She’s going to be stuck in her familiar’s body for the rest of their lives, unable to ever actually tell Ada how she feels, and have to watch as life and the school moved on with a potions mistress who was a new personality in the same body.

“Don’t give up now, Hecate,” Ada says, as if she can still read her body language clearly. “We’ll find a way. We always do.”

The dying sunlight streaming through the windows catches Ada’s silver hair and lights her from behind as she smiles, and Hecate thinks her heart stops at the sight. She chirps back at her, wanting more than anything to verbalize the feelings running through her. _I wish I shared your optimism_.

“I don’t think the answer is here,” Ada says, removing her spectacles to rub at her eyes. “We should try brewing the potion again and leaving the cauldron to sit, like the last one did. Maybe if we watch it happen, we’ll know how to reverse what it turned into.” She looks so tired. Hecate wants nothing more than to rub her fingers on the worry lines in her face to ease them away. She raises a tentative paw, the only thing she has, and taps at Ada’s arm, wishing beyond anything she could do something more.

Hecate doesn’t bother to pretend she isn’t planning on spending the night in Ada’s rooms again. She follows at Ada’s heels, trying hard not to trip her while at the same time staying as close as she can. Her neediness would concern her in any other situation, but given the very real possibility she might remain a cat, Hecate thinks she can give herself a pass just this one time.

She wakes with her face pressed close to Ada’s, and as soon as she’s aware enough to see how she’s sleeping, the purr rumbles from her chest again. It should be embarrassing, really, but it’s such a small thing in the whole picture of how many things she should be embarrassed by that Hecate doesn’t even spare it another thought. She burrows her head into Ada’s neck instead.

They aren’t particularly fast moving, once Ada wakes as well. Hecate finds the warmth of where she’s tucked under the blankets too enticing to leave willingly, and Ada seems to agree. When Morgana comes bursting in, unsure of how much force she actually needs to open the doors, she sighs loudly and theatrically.

“It’s not _fair_!” she exclaims. “You’re _still_ stealing my favorite spots, and none of the things _you_ do all day are actually fun!”

“We’re getting up,” Ada mumbles in response, although she rolls onto her other side instead of making a move to actually get out of bed. Hecate wishes she didn’t hate the loss of Ada’s arms around her as much as she does.

“No, you aren’t,” Morgana grumbles back as she stomps heavily out of the room. “Pendell will play with me.” She slams the door in her wake, making Hecate jump.

That at last makes Ada turn back over to stroke down Hecate’s spine, settling the bristling fur back in order. Hecate mewls and stretches languidly. If her rest is going to be disturbed anyway, there’s no point, in her mind, to staying cocooned in the blankets with Ada, no matter how much more appealing. 

* * *

Hecate stares into the purple depths of the calmly bubbling potion, made to the exact specifications she had been teaching in class. She still isn’t entirely certain Mildred Hubble followed the directions properly, but as far as starting points go, she concedes they probably should have begun with recreating the potion.

“There now. How many hours do you think it was left before you came back?” Ada says, returning with a bottle to hold most of the potion while they let the rest simmer. They’ve taped a piece of paper with several stock replies on the bench so Hecate can point to the one she wants. It is by no means a perfect solution, as there are a great deal many more things Hecate wants to say, but it’s better than the “blink once for yes and twice for no” they’d originally tried (it turns out Hecate doesn’t really need to blink in this state, which made the motion feel weird and wrong).

She places a paw deliberately on the number three, after some consideration. She had graded essays from the year ones first, which always took a while, and had spent an unfortunate amount of that time planning on what to say to Ada when they had their talk. Ada nods, and looks from the cauldron, now on a low burn with the contents slowly losing their bright purple color and turning to an unappealing sludge, to Hecate, primly washing a paw, tail wrapped around her legs.

“Did you have any ideas for what to do to prevent this one from exploding?”

Hecate pauses, paw over her face where she’d been rubbing it, and slowly shakes her head that, _no_ , she hadn’t thought of that. Ada chews on her lip and moves over to Hecate’s desk and conjures her tea tray.

_Mrrow!_ Hecate runs over and jumps to block Ada from grabbing the teapot, hackles raised. It may be Ada, but she still does not allow food in her potions lab.

“Hecate, I’m not going to stand there and watch it boil for three hours,” Ada says, hands on her hips. “I’m going to sit and enjoy my afternoon tea where I can keep an eye on it.” Hecate makes a disapproving noise but moves out of the way, swishing her tail so that it smacks against Ada’s hand as she reaches for the pot.

Ada, to her credit, allows Hecate her display of childishness and summons her novel, too, settling in Hecate’s chair. After a moment, Hecate relents and climbs into Ada’s lap and curls up to take a nap. If nothing else comes from this whole experience, at least she now knows why her familiar spends so much time in Ada’s office. Her pink jumpers are as soft as they look. 

* * *

After dinner, when the potion _doesn’t_ explode, Hecate yowls mournfully at the nearly empty cauldron. She knows that there was no way Mildred Hubble’s potions technique could be as perfect or diligent as Ada’s, but she’d allowed herself to hope this would work. Even Ada looks somewhat defeated at the lack of progress, but she musters up a smile when she sees Hecate looking at her.

“We weren’t certain that would work,” Ada says, clearing her throat. She moves to scratch at Hecate’s ears. Hecate starts purring, as much in response to the gesture as to comfort the both of them. “We should ask Mildred what she did, or see where she put the bottle she was supposed to save.”

“ _Mrrow._ ”

“Yes, I know you don’t want to involve her, but, Hecate, we’re running out of options.” Ada looks ready to pull her hair out. Hecate paws at her arm and chirps, the best apology she can do for her outburst.

“I can teach the potions classes tomorrow!”

Both Ada and Hecate’s heads whip to see Morgana, who finally managed to open a door without slamming it, standing with a huge grin on her face. “I’ve seen you do it _hundreds_ of times! I can just make them do mock exams all day and prowl around scowling at them like they’re doing everything wrong. Easy!”

Hecate bristles as Ada starts chuckling. “She has a point, dear. One more day while we keep at figuring out that spell can’t hurt, right?” Hecate disagrees, as it can hurt quite a lot of things, but she knows when she’s beaten, and not being able to properly argue her point strongly suggests she won’t win this one. 

* * *

Not that it surprises her much, but waking up once again cuddled in the blankets with Ada would turn out to be the only high point of her day.

Morgana’s knowledge of potions is, admittedly, impressive for a familiar, but it’s painfully obvious to Hecate that everything she knows is secondhand. She scowls and drawls her words and paces with big obvious steps in what Hecate chooses not to see as a mocking caricature of her teaching style. Only once does she get distracted by the reflection of a student’s maglet on the ceiling (one that Hecate deftly knocks immediately out of the path of light to stop). She’s considerably more frosty with Ethel Hallow than Hecate would be, and nearly smiles at Mildred Hubble, Maud Spellbody, and Enid Nightshade before she seems to remember not to.

All in all, Hecate is impressed with her familiar and insulted no one catches on to the imposter in equal measure.

And _still_ she’s a cat. 

* * *

Bedtime is a quiet affair. Hecate is _so tired_ of being a cat, but she also loves the closeness she’s been enjoying with Ada. She kneads Ada’s pillow to pass the time while she washes up. She’s going to miss this, she realizes, and instantly feels terrible for it.

What if the reason none of Ada’s counterspells have worked is that, on some level, Hecate would rather be a familiar so she can have closeness and intimacy without her own messy nature getting in the way and spoiling a true relationship? She shakes her head. Impossible. For all the things she wants to change in the world, being trapped in Morgana’s body on the same day she resolved to tell Ada the true depths of her feelings wouldn’t come close.

She lets out a _mrroph_ as Ada emerges in her pink silk dressing gown and bounds to the end of the bed, tail swishing happily.

“Yes, Hecate, time for bed,” she says, giving a strained smile. In another life, one where Hecate was not stuck in the body of a cat, this could be their daily routine. Waiting up for the other, shedding their robes, and choosing a side to the bed. “We’ll figure it out. We’ve got time, I know it.”

Hecate tilts her head and _mrroph_ s again. _Come to bed,_ she wants to say, pawing at the duvet to make her point. Ada must understand, as she pulls the blankets back to settle in. Hecate doesn't hesitate to curl against Ada's back, pressing her spine as far into Ada's as she can manage. 

"It's bad manners to push someone out of their own bed," Ada says, but there's no admonishment in her tone, just a gentle fondness. 

* * *

After several days of waking up pressed as closely to Ada as her sleeping self could manage, Hecate doesn't expect to feel as _right_ as she does waking up Tuesday morning. She stretches languidly, feeling her back pop in several places, and settles her head back down on Ada's chest.

She's just about drifted back to sleep when she realizes she's got her arms wrapped fully around Ada's middle. _Her arms._ Hecate jolts awake and abruptly sits up and pulls away from where her _human_ body was comfortably wrapped fully around her Headmistress.

Ada, for her part, grumbles at the interruption to her comfortable rest and peaks one bleary eye open to see what the fuss is about. "Oh!" Whatever she sees is enough to make Ada sit up as well, wiggling her fingers to make her spectacles appear on her nose. "Hecate….?"

"It's me," she replies softly, staring at her hands, flexing her fingers. "I'd have to find Morgana to be sure, but I think the potion wore off on its own."

Ada looks…. not sad, exactly, but definitely not as relieved as Hecate feels. "Right then," she says, "I guess you'll want to go sort through those mock exams from yesterday and sort out today's lesson since you lost the weekend to prep."

Hecate nods slowly in response and slides to her feet. She doesn't so much feel unsteady on her legs as she feels emotionally unsure of what, exactly, just happened. Ada had been so open all weekend; she doesn't know what to do with the shuttered expression currently on her face. 

* * *

It isn't that Heacte's day is _awful_ so much as everything feels _off._ Morgana isn't around, which Hecate surmises means she's off hanging around Ada, but Pendell takes her place. He's hanging around closer than usual, which Hecate doesn't understand.

Normally Pendell will sit on the corner of her desk while she marks essays. Today he sits in her lap, quietly curled up and occasionally batting at the watch around her neck when she leans forward. If she concentrates, she can feel the traces of Ada's magic on him, so Hecate doesn't mind his sudden desire for closeness in the slightest.

_We trade humans when one of you is lonely._

Morgana's words echo in her head. "I'm not _sad_ , Pendell," she tells him. He flicks an ear and paws at her watch. "Is Ada upset?" Pendell declines to answer, not that Hecate expected much different. 

* * *

Ada's office door has never looked so menacing before. Pendell wraps around her ankles, purring softly and occasionally giving a very pointed look to where Hecate's fist is raised poised to knock.

She's wanted for three days now to be able to explain to Ada how she feels, how Ada makes her feel _safe_ and _home_ in ways she's never felt before. How even when she was trapped in Morgana's body, Ada's presence made everything seem less dire.

Cursing her cowardice, Hecate transfers away as Pendell gets frustrated and starts scratching at the door for attention.

Hecate doesn't see Ada's sadness at the lingering golden wisps of her magic giving her away, nor does she hear Morgana's accusing meow from within. 

* * *

She doesn't sleep well.

Her bed is too large and too cold. Pendell gives up on her tossing and turning and retreats, presumably back to Ada’s rooms. Hecate assumes that’s where Morgana is as well. She contemplates transferring her, knowing her familiar would understand she would only do so if she was under great stress. Ada would wonder at the action, however; Hecate isn’t sure she wants to admit to Ada just yet that she’s already unaccustomed to sleeping alone.

By two in the morning, Hecate gives up and heads to the library in her leather dressing gown. She can’t believe in all their research, they’d neglected to consider Mildred Hubble accidentally cast a time spell.

An hour and a half later, Hecate concludes bat drool got into the cauldron and accelerated what should have been a twelve hour simmer for a twenty-four hour spell to trade places with an animal. It likely also caused the explosion. Satisfied, she stretches and yawns and closes the book, making a mental note to explain it to Ada later.

All in all, it seems what happened was well and truly an accident and she likely won't be able to punish Mildred very much for it, as irritating as that sounds. Another lecture on the consequences of not properly cleaning up one's potions would not go amiss.

Hecate transfers out just as Ada opens the library door to conduct the same research. 

* * *

_This is ridiculous._

Thinking it doesn’t change anything, however, no matter how annoyed Hecate is with herself. It’s bedtime on Wednesday, now, and she’s made no further progress in getting into Ada’s office to have their talk. She’s in her own rooms, Pendell standing on her bed, glaring at her in what she’s certain is disapproval.

With an aggravated sigh, Hecate whirls around and resolves to march straight to Ada’s rooms. Her hands are shaking too badly to trust a transfer, and the walk should help calm her nerves. She hopes.

Be it the determined scowl on her face or the way she’s walking as if her robes are on fire, none of the girls try and stop her for any reason along the way, and soon enough Hecate is once again frozen outside the door of Ada’s office.

This time, however, before she can even try and either knock or transfer away, the door opens to Ada’s bewildered face.

“Hecate!” Ada gasps, taking an immediate step back. Hecate’s heart pounds. “I was, erm, just about to come find you, actually, I--”

“Can I hold you tonight?” Hecate blurts out, eyes darting everywhere but Ada’s face. All of her carefully planned confessions flee her mind. _I love you. I love you. I love you._ She opens her mouth, but the words remain trapped, and she curses herself.

A long moment passes, and Hecate isn’t sure if she can stand it anymore when Ada gently grasps her hand in both of hers, and the soft smile on Ada’s face nearly stops Hecate’s heart completely.

“Of course."

“I-I know we need to talk, but I…” Hecate swallows. “I just want to be close to you.”

“Why don’t we sort it all in the morning,” Ada says, and Hecate thinks her heart finally returns to normal. Ada pulls her in by the hand, and Hecate hesitates only slightly before allowing herself to be led inside.

“Are you sure, I can…” Hecate withdraws her hand and rubs the pads of her fingers against her thumbs. “I don’t want to intrude, but I placed a spell on my rooms to send any girls to Miss Drill if they need anything, just in case.”

She’s afraid to look at Ada’s face, afraid of the rejection she may find there. “Hecate. Your company is always welcome.” She braves a look to see Ada still smiling at her, as if her finally reaching out is as welcomed as she’d hoped.

When it’s quiet and they’re settled under the blankets, Hecate wrapped around Ada’s back, Pendell behind her knees, and Morgana curled into Ada’s chest, Ada clears her throat. “I’m sorry. Yesterday morning, I didn’t… That is, I was surprised, and I reacted badly, and I’m sorry.”

“Ada - “

“No, I know you want to sleep, just please let me…” Hecate tightens her hold. “I was afraid you would be angry with me when you turned back for taking advantage of you. You were… I know what Morgana said, but that didn’t mean you wanted…”

“Ada, please,” Hecate pulls her closer, if that’s possible, and nuzzles her face into Ada’s hair. “I want…” She exhales loudly. “I wanted to be able to talk it through.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.” 

_Cause I'm shedding my skin  
so you can see my face  
I need you to know who I am  
I'm ready to go where I've never been  
Will you stay around and follow me?  
_\- "If I Told You," Idina Menzel __  


**Author's Note:**

> Morgana and Pendell were spoiled with many many treats for being very good familiars who knew exactly what their mistresses wanted and helped them get there. 
> 
> cats probably can't hear heartbeats unless they're pressed close, but they probably CAN hear breathing patterns and shifts. I checked.
> 
> this was inspired heavily by my big needy fatty cat named Andy who I've woken up being spooned by, and who also likes to curl up into my face and starts purring when he notices I woke up.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Lovecats](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21329239) by [cassiopeiasara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiopeiasara/pseuds/cassiopeiasara)




End file.
